The Serrano Connection (9 page)

"It's not my problem now," she said. "I'm only here for a short leave—"

"She likes you," Berthol said. His gaze flicked to his aides, who were studiously ignoring this. "She says you're the one sane member of your generation, and now you're a hero."

Esmay felt herself reddening. "I'm not. All I did—"

"Esmay, this is
family
. You don't have to pretend. All you did, you babykin, was survive a mutiny, come out on top, and then defeat a warship twice your size."

Bigger than that, Esmay thought. She didn't say it; it would only make things worse. "It didn't know I was there until too late," she said.

"So you were smarter than its captain. Hero, Esmay. Get used to it. You're carrying our flag out there, Esmay, and you're doing very well."

She was not carrying
their
flag, but her own. They would not understand that, even if she dared say it to them. And Berthol sounded too much like Major Chapin, too much like Admiral Serrano. She had been a hero by accident—why wasn't it as obvious to the others as it was to her?

"And Sanni's very proud of you," Berthol went on. "She wants to talk to you—ask you all about Fleet, about your life. If you're meeting anyone eligible, if I know Sanni." He laughed, but it sounded forced.

She had left for a good reason. She should have stayed away. Yet at the thought of the whole family for once approving, for once seeing her as an asset rather than a very chancy proposition, her heart beat faster. The Starmount . . . when she'd been a little girl, she remembered the first soldier she'd seen awarded the Starmount, a lean, red-haired fellow who walked lopsided. She had stared and stared at the medal on its blue and silver ribbon that dangled around his neck until a disapproving grownup made her apologize and then quit following him. No one from Altiplano could be indifferent to the Starmount . . . and she didn't have to tell Fleet how she felt.

At the shuttlefield, the only media wore the green and scarlet uniforms of the Altiplano Central News Agency. No one tried to speak to her; no one tried to crowd close. She knew that her walk from the shuttle through the terminal to the waiting car would be only one clip in the finished story, narrated by a senior "analyst." No one would try to interview her; here that was considered rude and disrespectful.

Her father, backed by a wedge of other officers, gave her the same formal salute Berthol had; she returned it, and he gave her the semiformal hug and kisses, not fatherly, but from commander to junior about to be honored. She was introduced to his senior aide, to the next senior; she was led through a corridor where a solid block of militia provided complete privacy—in their terms, which meant from civilian eyes—for her few moments in the ladies' retiring room, where she found two tiring maids ready to apply fresh makeup and attempt to do something about her flyaway hair. That ended in a spritz of scented stuff which would leave her scalp itchy for two days—but this once, she didn't mind. In moments they had whisked off her R.S.S. uniform jacket, pressed it, and after a look at the shirt beneath, insisted on replacing it with a clean one from her luggage.

Refreshed, and to her surprise cheered by these ministrations, Esmay came back out, into the midst of a low-voiced argument between her father and her uncle.

"It's only one cloud," her uncle was saying. "And it might not rain—"

"It's only one bullet," her father said. "And it might miss. I'm not taking the chance. When her hair gets wet—Oh, there you are, Esmaya. There's a line of storms moving into the city; we're going to go by car—"

"It's not nearly as impressive," Berthol grumbled. "And it's not as if you expected her to do any
real
riding."

She had assumed by car; she'd forgotten that on Altiplano all ceremony involved horses. She thanked some unknown deity for the gift of a possible rainstorm and her father's distaste for the frizzy mess her hair became if it got damp. At least no one from Fleet was here, to make a joke about a backwoods military that still used horses.

Of course the parade still had horses, even though she was in a car. From the protection of the car, she watched the perfectly drilled cavalry swing into position before and behind, the horses moving in unison, their glossy haunches bunching and relaxing. The riders, their backs upright, hands quiet, faces set in a neutral expression that would not vary if a horse stood up on its hind legs . . . not that one of those well-trained animals would. Beyond the horses, a crowd on the sidewalks, faces peering from the windows of the taller buildings. Some of them waved the gold and red Altiplano colors.

She had not been home for just over ten standard years. She had left as a gawky teenager, who in memory seemed the very model of adolescent incapacity. Nothing had fit, not her body nor her mind nor her emotions. From not fitting at home to not fitting in the Fleet prep school had been a tiny, natural transition. By the time she had graduated from the Academy, she had expected to be the odd one out, the one whose reactions were not natural.

She had not realized how much those feelings had been due to age and then the real displacement of leaving her home world before her adult identity had solidified. Now, in the light of Altiplano's sun, with her body held by Altiplano's gravity, she began to relax, feeling at home in a way she had not since she was a little girl. The colors were
right
in a way they had not been for years; her very bones knew that this gravity, not one standard G, was the right gravity.

When she stepped out of the car, and walked up the red stone steps of the palace, her feet found the right intervals without effort. These steps were the right height, the right depth; this stone felt solid enough; this doorway welcomed; this air—she took another long breath—this air smelled right, and felt right all the way down to the bottom of her lungs.

She looked around at the people now crowding into the hall around her. Humans were humans, but the shapes of humans varied with their genome and the worlds they lived on. Here the bone structure looked familiar; these were the faces she had known all her life, prominent cheekbones and brows, long jutting chins, eyes set deeply under thick eyebrows. These long arms and legs, big bony hands and feet, boxy joints—these were her people, her look. Here she fit in, at least physically.

"Ezzmaya! S'oort semzz zalaas!" Esmay turned; her ears had already adapted to the Altiplano dialect, even in her family's less-obvious form, and she had no trouble understanding the welcome she'd just been given. She didn't immediately recognize the wizened old man in front of her, stiffly upright and wearing the brilliant braid of a former senior NCO, but her father's senior aide murmured into her earplug. Retired master sergeant Sebastian Coron . . . of course. He had been part of her life as far back in childhood as she could remember, always crisp and correct, but with a twinkle for his commander's elder daughter.

Her tongue, hearing the familiar speech, curled into the trills without her having to think of it. She thanked him for his congratulations in the formal phrases that brought a broader grin to his face. "And your family—your bodysons and heartdaughters? And don't I remember that you have grandlings now?"

Before he could answer, her father had extended his own hand to Coron. "You can come visit later," her father said. "We need to get her upstairs—" Coron nodded, gave Esmay a stiff short bow, and stepped back. As her father led her away, he said "I hope you don't mind—he's so proud of you, you'd think he was your father. He wanted to come—"

"Of course I don't mind." She glanced up the green-carpeted stairs. She had always loved the stained glass window on the landing, that poured rich gold and blood-colored light onto the carpet. Palace guards in black and gold stood stiff as the banister rails, staring at nothing. As a child, she had wondered whether they would be so stiff if tickled, but she'd never had the chance . . . or the daring . . . to try it. Now she climbed past them, bemused by the mixture of memories and present feelings.

"And he wants to hear about it direct from you—at least some of it . . ."

"That's fine," said Esmay. She would rather tell old Coron than any of the fresh-faced young militia officers now surrounding them. Coron had taught her more of the basics than her father probably knew; she had pored over the handbooks on small-unit tactics under his watchful eye all one summer down in Varsimla.

"He does get a bit carried away," her father went on. "But he saved my skin often enough." He looked ahead to the upper hall, where a cluster of men in formal dress waited in a semicircle. "Ah . . . there we are. The Long Table advisors—did you have time in the car—?"

She had not, but that's what the earplugs were for. Most of them were men she had met before, in the way that the children of a household meet distinguished guests. She would not have remembered that Cockerall Mordanz was Advisor on Marine Resources, but she did remember that he'd once fallen off during a polo game and her uncle Berthol's pony had neatly jumped over him. The current Long Table Host, Ardry Castendas Garland, had once slipped coming into their dining room, and knocked over the little table with the hot towels on it; her great-grandmother had scolded her for staring.

"Esmay—Lieutenant Suiza!" the Host said now, catching himself and returning to the formality appropriate to the ceremony. "It is an honor . . ." His voice trailed away, and Esmay allowed herself an interior smile. Altiplano lacked the right honorific for someone like her: female, a military officer, a hero. She felt conflicting impulses to help him out, and to let him stew in his problem: they, after all, had wanted to make her a hero. Let them come up with something. "My dear," he said finally. "I'm sorry, but I keep remembering the sweet child you were. It's hard to grasp what you've become."

Esmay could cheerfully have slapped him. Sweet child! She had been a sulky, awkward teenager, the successor to an awkward child . . . not sweet, but difficult and strange. And what she was now should be simple enough to grasp: a junior officer of the Regular Space Service.

"It's clear enough," said another man, one she didn't recognize. Opposition Leader, her earplug said. Orias Leandros. He smiled at her, but the smile was intended for the Host. He would make political profit of her . . . he thought.

"Host Garland," Esmay said quickly. She didn't like either of them, but she knew where her family duty lay. "You can be no more amazed at my present predicament than I am. My father tells me you plan an award—but, you must realize, you do me too much honor."

"Not at all," Garland said, back in balance again. He shot the briefest glare at his rival. "It's obvious that your family inheritance of military ability continues down the generations. No doubt your sons—" He stopped, trapped again in the assumptions of Altiplano and the usual phrases. What would have been a fine compliment to a man sounded almost indecent applied to a woman.

"It has been so long," Esmay said, changing the subject before Orias Leandros could say anything damaging. "Perhaps you would introduce me to the other advisors?"

"Of course." Garland was sweating a little. How had he ever been elected Host, when he was still as clumsy in word and deed as ever? But he got through the introductions well enough, and Esmay managed to smile with the right intensity at all the right people.

The award ceremony itself felt odd, because Esmay could not feel anything at all. She was too aware of the faint murmur of the earplug, coaching her through the required lines, of the expressions on the faces around her . . . the embarrassment she'd felt when first told of the award could not penetrate the concentration needed to do it right. The Starmount itself, a disk with the blue and black enamel representing a mountain against the sky, the little diamond glittering at the peak, aroused neither pride nor guilt. She bent her head to let the Host put the wide blue-and-gray ribbon around her neck; the medal felt lighter than she'd expected.

Then it was only a matter of standing in the line, saying the ritual greetings and thanks to those who filed past her: pleased, how kind, thank you, how lovely, how kind, thank you so much, very kind, how pleased . . . until the last of the line, a white-haired old lady related to Esmay's grandmother in some complicated way, had passed from her father to her, and from her to the Host. She had a few minutes to sip the tangy fruit juice and taste the pastries, then her father hurried her into the car again for the trip home.

She would like to have stayed longer; she was still hungry, and some of the faces that had blurred past had been friends once. She would have liked a chance to shop in town, to get herself some new clothes. But she had no more to say about it than when she'd been a schoolgirl. The general said it was time to leave, and they left. She tried not to resent it.

"Papa Stefan," her father said to her. "He didn't feel well enough to come in, but he had planned a family reception."

She could not imagine Papa Stefan anything but well; he had been white-haired even in her childhood, but vigorous, riding and working alongside his sons and grandchildren. Things had changed, then. She had known they would, eventually, but—it was hard to feel the same gravity, breathe the same air, recognize the same smells, and think of change. The buildings they drove past, the substantial stone blocks that housed stores and banks and offices, were the same she had always known.